Yesterday as I was driving home from work, I heard Garrison Keillor’s daily “Writer’s Almanac,” and when he read the poem for the day, I almost had to pull over for the tears in my eyes.
I need to listen to this little program every day from now on.
What are your favorite poems? Give us the title and author… and a link to the text if you can find it.
I actually podcast The Writer’s Almanac – it’s so short that you can catch up in a hurry, while you’re brushing your teeth or whatever!
My favorite poem, right now, is “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, by Wendell Berry. I have the text stashed away here.
I am not a connoisseur of poetry, but those that I love, I love passionately.
Dylan Thomas’s Fern Hill.
Gerard Manley Hopkins’s The Windhover and God’s Grandeur and most everything he did.
Jeffrey, you might be particularly interested in the work of Margaret Avison, one of Canada’s foremost poets (if not the foremost) and an example of a Christian engaging culture.
i hate to be predictable, but my all-time favorite is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot. (http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html).
On my birthday, my writing partner told me I would wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.
The Rock, also by Eliot, is a close second. (http://www.wisdomportal.com/Technology/TSEliot-TheRock.html).
I podcast the Writer’s Almanac as well.
Here are a few of my favorite poems:
James Wright’s The Blessing
You can also find it at http://www.poets.org.
Marcia Southwick’s The Rain’s Marriage. Sorry, can’t find a link for this one, but it’s in this book
and
Carolyn Forche’s The Colonel. This is the best link I could find. There are other links out there, but this one has the text as it should be displayed.